KOCHI: The Kochi police on Friday arrested four Gujarat residents who allegedly defrauded goldsmiths from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu of Rs 50 lakh by providing soil that they falsely claimed contained gold particles.
Surat residents Sandeep Hasmukh Bhai, 37, Vipul Manji Bhai, 43, Dharmesh Bhai, 38, and Krupesh Bhai, 35, were picked up from their hideouts in the city. In addition to the Rs 50 lakh, the suspects had also obtained a cheque worth Rs 18 lakh from the victims, the police said.
The police said the suspects had rented a building on North Janatha Road in Palarivattom and set up a fake gold-processing unit. The victim goldsmiths learnt about the unit last month through agents, the police said, adding that the accused told the victims that they were in possession of soil containing high quantities of gold particles, collected from gold factories across India.
Describing the elaborate fraud, an officer said approximately 500 sacks of the soil were stored at the unit and the goldsmiths were given 5 kg as samples for verification.
“The suspects had a special table with a weighing scale set up at their office in Palarivattom. When the sample was placed on the scale, one of the accused, who was hiding under the table, injected a gold solution into the sample with a syringe through a hole. As a result, the victims were tricked into believing the soil was rich in gold,” the officer said.
After they processed the sample and discovered more gold than expected, the Tamil Nadu goldsmiths paid Rs 50 lakh as well as two cheques totalling Rs 18 lakh to purchase five tonnes of soil on March 18. However, upon further examination of the soil, the goldsmiths realised the fraud and approached the police.
Analysing CCTV footage from the area, the police tracked down and arrested the accused. They also found that similar cases of fraud had been registered against the four at police stations in Sendamangalam in Tamil Nadu as well as the Ernakulam North police station.
“Preliminary probe revealed the accused had been operating the fake gold-processing unit in Kochi for two years. Before July 2024, they had a similar operation in Ernakulam North, where they deceived a Mumbai resident similarly. The victims are traditional goldsmiths who collect soil and extract gold particles from it,” said SI Harishankar O S, who led the investigation.
ACP P Rajkumar and Palarivattom SHO K R Rupesh supervised the probe.